The Registry is a central hierarchical database used in some operating systems including Microsoft WINDOWS 9x, WINDOWS CE, WINDOWS NT, WINDOWS 2000 and WINDOWS XP. The Registry is used to store information required to configure the system for one or more users, applications and hardware devices. The Registry includes information that WINDOWS continually references during operation, such as profiles for each user, the applications installed on the computer, the types of documents that each application can create, property sheet settings for folders and application icons, what hardware exists on the system, the ports that are being used and so on. At times it may be desirable to present a logical view of a registry key that is made up of two or more physical keys.